


TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

by lauxeyson



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 04:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11867076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauxeyson/pseuds/lauxeyson
Summary: You are held captive in the prison of Asgard. The man in the cell opposite to yours is having a hard time understanding that caring is not a weakness, but indeed a strenght.





	TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

The man’s screams echoed in the halls of the dungeons. It ricochet on the walls, carried throughout the whole place. Every day that poor soul repeated the same ear-piercing yell as if it was his mantra.

“Let me out.”

Every time his tearstained words reached your ears, the man in the cell opposite to yours told him to keep his mouth shut. To stop complaining and to stop bothering the other inmates. It must have bothered him most of all, cause no one else would talk back to the tormented man and his pleas.

All the man did was sit and read. Back resting on the wall or the bed. Sometimes he sat in the lonesome chair that served as little décor in his cell. Other times he laid in his bed, but he wouldn’t be reading at all.

You observed him quite often, probably more than you should. But to be fair, his cell was directly in front of yours. He was all the little view you had. But god, it was a good view.

Time passed, but occasionally a woman, who you identified to be the queen of Asgard, came baring with more books for him to read. His otherwise calm demeanor shifted after her visits. The books she brought would lay untouched on a small table until he had no other source of entertainment. Other than the queen, no one else came to visit him. 

He caught your eye again. He need not do much for you to start paying extra attention to him. You watched in fascination as he moved swiftly across the floor. His strides were determined yet slow. He was, as always, clad in his emerald green clothes. Black and gold details shimmered beneath the lights, and unless your eyes were playing some trick on you, they glittered as well. His raven locks flowed over his shoulders, sometimes they fell in his eyes and he would flicker it behind his ear.

Loki.

You knew his name by heart. Never had you dared to speak it aloud, nor speak to the man himself. Surely it would taste sweet on your tongue. Roll of it in such a delicate manner it would prove addictive. But you never dared to say it, not mutter it softly to yourself, in fear that he would hear.

Rumors of his temper flowed through the public like a river. After it became known that he was Thor’s adoptive brother, theories were formed of his true fatherhood. The king nor Thor would speak of it when asked. People were left with nothing but speculations.

You thought you knew it all about the prince, but truth is you knew nothing at all. So you kept to basking in his sheer beauty, the elegance of his moves.

“Like what you see?”

His voice startled you. You broke out of your momentary trance, blinking harshly while awkwardly fidgeting with whatever was close by. Calmly and softly you lifted your gaze upon the god. His eyes were trained on the book in hand, but the smirk on his lips made it clear that he was fully aware of your troubled mind.

He was seated on the floor, back resting on the wall behind him, legs crossed while reading.

“There’s no reason to be shy, my lady.”

Your cheeks heated up at his comment in embarrassment. The god of mischief just caught you staring for who knows how long. There was no clever comeback from that. You dug your grave and laid yourself in it. 

“I’ve noticed your surveillance of me quite… frequently.”

His statement only made the deep red of your cheeks darken. As if to salvage what was rest of your dignity, you turned away from him, hiding your flushed face.

“There is no reason to hide, kitten.” You swore you heard him chuckle darkly behind your back. Your eyes roamed the wall in front of you, perhaps in hope that a solution to your current situation would magically be spelled out for you.

“I’m not,” you creaked out hoarsely. That was the reason why you never dared speak to him. His reputation, his demeanor and the cracked crown on his head left you at a loss for words.

“Look at me.” His words sounded softer than what you could have ever imagined. They did not sound like the cold command that originally crossed your mind. His velvet voice spoke the words softly. Like a hunter not wanting to scare away his prey.

“I promise I won’t bite.” You could hear the smirk on his perfectly sculpted face. You sighed and closed your eyes shut as you twisted your entire body in the direction from where his voice came last.

“That’s more like it,” he sung in amusement. You kept your eyes closed until you heard him sigh. That’s when they shot open, locking with his green ones.

“That wasn’t so difficult now was it, my lady?”

You tried to swallow, but found your throat closed off and mouth dry. Your heart was threatening to beat out of your ribcage. It took a few second to collect yourself enough to pick up the conversation and not leave it at a one-way street.

“What are you reading?”

His eyes flew back down to the book in his hand. He chuckled before he closed it and brought it up to his chest to display the cover to you.

“Just an old book of spells, nothing interesting.” He gave you a tight smile, one that did not reach his eyes. “I know most of them anyway.”

“Remind me to have you show me one time,” you said with a small smile of your own. The only thing you knew of his powers was the little gossip that travelled through the market.

“You read yourselves?” He turned his head to you, eyes flickering in the yellow lighting. “If I recall correctly, you’ve had your head buried in a book as well.”

“Mm,” you hummed as you turned to the small stack of books on your own table. “Some Midgardian classics.”

“Such as?”

“You’ve read Midgardian books?” Your head shot back to the raven-haired god.

“A few, the ones I could get a hold of.”

“Well, um, Hemingway, Wilde, Shakespeare, that kind.”

“Ah, Shakespeare,” he said with a hum. “Hamlet is my personal favorite.”

“Mine as well.” You smiled a bit bigger at him.

“What is your favorite quote?” He mirrored your smile and let it seep through the cracks of his voice.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking it makes it so.”

“That’s funny,” he said over a small laugh. “That’s my favorite.”

Both of you must have blushed at equal measure, hiding your pink cheeks and unwavering smiles behind hands and hair. A silence washed over you. One that was a tad awkward when you both made to say something, only to be interrupted by the other. Awkward smiles and giggles passed into the air as the silence became heavy. 

“What are you in for anyway?” He asked quietly, breaking the silence before it cut off your circulation. “You don’t strike me as one for mischief.”

“I am not,” you said quietly, lowering your head so your eyes once again met the floor. “Normally.”

He smirked devilishly at your response, the gears in his head working overtime.

“Then why are you here if I may ask?”

You mimicked his posture, seating yourself with your back against the wall and fiddled with your hands in your lap.

“I was protecting a friend.”

He didn’t respond and turned his attention back to the book that was now long forgotten.

“How many times have you read that?” You asked and rested the back of your head on the wall, your eyes falling on his figure.

“Once too many.” He closed it again and placed it in his lap. “If you were protecting someone, why are you imprisoned?”

“It’s complicated.” You mapped all of his movements. The flow of his hands when he pushed away a strand of hair. His long, sleek legs spread out on the floor. The occasional shift when he stayed in one position for too long.

“Try me,” he suggested as he mimicked your movements as well. His head hit the wall with a small thud, his eyes following yours from across the hall.

“You tell me why you are here first.”

“No, no,” he chuckled. “You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.”

“Okay,” you sighed and took a deep breath while mentally preparing yourself to go over it once again. “I have this friend- had. Have? I’m not sure anymore,” you said and let out a dry chuckle. “She struggled, with a lot of things. I tried to be a good friend and support her no matter what.”

Loki nodded his head slowly as you kept talking. He kept his mouth shut all the while you told him your story.

“One day, she asked me if I could meet her down at the rainbow bridge. I thought it odd, but went anyway. I thought she needed me, but it was all a con. Our entire friendship was a con, all so she could get her hands on some old jewelry my family owned.”

“Forgive me, my lady. But I don’t see how any of that could result in you being in here.”

“I’m getting to that,” you said and smiled at Loki. “She called the guards on me, said that I was the thief and that I attempted to run off to another realm with the goods. Not before I allegedly killed Heimdall and made sure the bifrost would combust.” You scoffed at the memory of your backstabbing ‘friend’.

Loki couldn’t believe why anyone would want to fool you.

“I tried to fight off the guards, but I only managed to wound them slightly. They made sure that was added to my sentence.”

Loki remained silent for a good while after you finished.

“What? Did you expect something more heroic?”

He chuckled at your comment and shook his head. The way you acted now was so different than the shy girl who could barely speak to him before. He liked this side of you and beat his brain as to why he had not spoken to you earlier.

“Please tell me you intend to get revenge,” he said with a smirk.

“Nah,” you said with a small smile. Loki’s eyes widened for a second.

“Why not?”

“Because I cared for her. I don’t have a reason to waste my time with malice and hate. I am not going to be a menace in her life because of this.”

“She got you locked up, and you do not resent her?” He wiped his hand over his face. “If it was me, I’d kill them the second I got out of here.”

“Even if you cared deeply for them?”

“There is not a lot of people whom I care about, my lady.” Loki huffed and eyed the book still laying in his lap, as it was some sorts of distraction.

“Caring is not a weakness Loki. It’s a strength.” You shook your head gently as you said the few words of meaning.

He turned his gaze back on you, a small smile playing on his lips. “It isn’t?” You only shook your head in return, “The world is a cruel place, kitten.”

“It can be, yes,” you said with a small sigh. “But having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage. You have courage, don’t you?”

“Plenty.”

You smiled at him once more, a warmer one than all the others you had sent his way. “Violence isn’t going to solve anything, my king.”

“I like you,” he said with a huge smirk. You laughed merrily at his reaction to the nickname that had threatened to spill much earlier.

“What is your name, my lady?” 

“(Y/N),” you said and cast your eyes down at the floor again. Suddenly you were back to being embarrassed, back to the flushed cheeks. He brought out that side in you.

“We are going to have so much fun together (Y/N).”


End file.
